Kaltomar

I spent today designing my villain for the first novel. He's really just an element of a larger force, of course--the first book can't exactly reveal the full scale of the conflict--but that doesn't keep him from being pretty bad.

He's insane. He's an artist. He's brilliant and diabolical. He's possessed.

Altogether, I'm enjoying this artist side of him. There's something about aesthetic detachment--especially as I've studied James Joyce--that just seems pernicious in that it separates what is beautiful from what is moral. So he is the grand designer, artist, and orchestrator of the destruction of the world. Chaos and annihilation have their own brand of beauty, a darker shade of black and fire.

He does it because he enjoys it. It doesn't help that he's a demigod.

Playing around with multiple personalities is fun, too. You can never tell which side of him you're talking to--especially when the sides of him that aren't him are trying to manipulate you on several levels. This kind of thing is going to be fun to mess with.

Vaetkryter

I just came up with a religion.

This is after the fact that I've held two workshops in the past week for the Underground--Southern Virginia's creative writing club--and I've been feeling hungry for some good solid brainstorming of my own. So the thought came to me that my world needed more culture, and that the culture needed to be more fleshed out than simply nations, communities, and histories.

Essentially, I needed religion. I needed aesthetics and macro-level motivations. My world needed a reason to exist the way it does, and it needed to exist more vibrantly than it had been.

Enter the Vaetkryter.

The Vaetkryter believed in a god named Vaed, the god of the sky. At some point before the creation of the world, Vaed reached the end of his then-current life cycle, necessitating rebirth. He formed the world as a chrysalis or egg in preparation for rebirth. What he demands of his followers is that they help to free him by destroying the world, and he promises new powers of creation as he remakes all creation with his new degree of divinity.

So his followers turn out to be apocalyptic zealots who strive to physically destroy creation, waging international warfare and subterfuge. This plays a large role because there are certain key characters that hold (or held) to this religion, and it's going to drastically affect their actions throughout the book.

I rather like it, even if it's a bunch of nonsense. Vaed doesn't really exist--at the very least, not the way his followers think he does. He might actually exist in a different manner than previously thought... This actually ties in quite well with another event in the series.

Kampchalla

Tonight, I mapped out divine power. This is, of course, one of the central themes of the Caiorr, so I needed to get it done sooner instead of later. What I find particularly satisfying is the way that it lines up with crucial plot points and ideas that I've already had--as if signs that this is where the milieu needs to go.

The Kampchalla isn't a new concept--in fact, it's rather core to my LDS beliefs, but in the Caiorr it's expressed in such a way that it makes it approachable, essentially compiling ordinations, covenants, exaltations, and powers into a simple-yet-comprehensive system. That may sound pretty vague, but it makes sense to me. More on this will be forthcoming.

I promise that I provide better exposition in my book than I do on this blog--for obvious reasons. I feel like if I reveal very much about any of my ideas, it'll give away too much later on. I guess I might just say that the Kampchalla feels like the Church meeting the Force. Justin would probably be pleased about that. But it goes much further than that.

I still need to work out the technicalities behind demonic power, because it draws from the same source. How can both angels and demons have access to the same power? There have to be rules made, I guess. I need to make all of the rules terribly specific and technical, otherwise it'll become something easily exploitable to get it to do whatever I want, at the cost of audience interest and belief. If power--even godlike power--becomes too cheap and trendy, then how can it be seen as the incredibly powerful thing that it is? I need to establish some ground rules so it becomes obvious that when someone is calling upon the power of the gods, they're not merely bringing out bigger guns--they're pretty much ending the fight.

That's okay, because it means that there will be serious repercussions to the fight's conclusion. Godlike power is not used lightly. Consequences follow. This could get really crazy.

Forces of Corruption

News for this week:

As of last night, I've reworked the forces of corruption and expanded their individual roles. In doing so, I've incorporated my other planned projects into the Caiorr. The series will now feature appearances of both the Korshar and the Tymantia. I've identified specific roles for both the Orraim and the Aedylonians. I know how the Ardror fit into the big picture. I'm getting a better feel for how the whole thing will work out.

Now that the worlds of Tymant and Movremit Coriah are a part of the overall universe of the Caiorr, I can start implementing ideas developed for those works into the universe of The Power and the Corruption. For instance, the idea of blood containing the soul from the world of Coriah. How can that be implemented into the worlds of Hylos and Tymant? I can see the Caidonians being superstitious about blood spillage and burial.

Perhaps the landscape can reflect the impact of bloodstained ground or something. Violent seas after tremendous sea battles or martyrdoms. Barren landscapes after bloodshed. The land reflects the violence. Weapons of power because the weapons truly reflect the slain. See? The ideas have begun to flow. And as long as I keep working at them and putting new and old things together, they'll continue to flow in beautifully new ways.

CAIORR

This is my core, the center of who I am. This is the heart of my soul, of my dreams, and of my aspirations. This is what I plan on writing, in sheer and breathtaking form, over the course of my lifetime. This is what I begin today.

I started working on this project when I turned fifteen. I had a marvelous vision in my imagination of some great culmination of endless ages and eternities, with a triumphant and thunderous dawn that broke the darkness and brought all things to a glorious conclusion. Call it archetypal or call it naive--this is what I saw, and this is what I've been striving to write towards ever since I first saw it in the eye of my mind.

The volumes, in order:

THE POWER AND THE CORRUPTION

THE RISEN AND THE FALLEN

THE REASON AND THE PASSION

THE TRUTH AND THE LIE

THE VALIANT AND THE FAINT

THE TRIUMPH AND THE SURRENDER

THE ORDER AND THE CHAOS

THE LIFE AND THE DEATH

THE CREATION AND THE VOID

THE FOUNT AND THE MAW

This is where I begin, and this is where I end. This is meant to be The Story--the story to end all stories, to encompass all truths, to bring about a grand and resounding climax to the great battle of eternity--of the Light and the Darkness, the Caidon and the Orraim, and the gods. This is meant to encompass everything.

So this is my project. I've got a long, long way to go. This is me bearing my soul to you, so you can see what it is that I aspire towards: I intend to become so much more than I've ever been before.

This is the CAIORR. This is the reason that I created this blog in the first place--so I could record my journey in reaching that far off, but so tantalizingly-close horizon that keeps me running home.

The Furthest End of Heaven

This is the first step on the long road back. I've been going far too long without a cord or a lantern; I've lost my footing and my perspective, and if I keep it up I'll have lost everything else that's needful. I find it interesting how long it's been since I've actually held a light in the air and known, purely and simply, that I'm on the right track. It's been about three weeks. That's a long time, even in eternal matters. Three weeks is more than enough time to totally screw up.

So I'm currently stumbling around at the far end of heaven. I know that I am not where I need to be, and that doing what I have been doing is going to get me no closer to the light that I seek. I've been led to question some things that are unquestionable, to falter where I need strength, and to lose faith in the Faithful. This entry marks an effort to realign myself with where I need to go and with who I need to be, with what I need to be doing. I suppose that two years is a long enough time for the counsel to keep a journal to finally kick in. It may be two years too late, but that's up for time to tell. I don't think it's ever too late for God to save a reckless sinner. So long as their heart is seeking an upward clime, the sinner is never out of the reach of His hands.

I'm struggling in this upward battle. It's dark around here, and I don't like it. Darkness is gross. It's the least comforting and most destructive force in existence. Darkness defiles, confuses, fades, and deeply affects every human heart it comes in contact with. The only thing to do about darkness is to pour light into your life. The One who pours the light is our Father in Heaven, assisted by His Son, Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Ghost. It's this radiance that gives me a brief glimpse of heaven even though all the clouds and bastions of hell stand in the way. I call down the powers of heaven into my life whenever I invite the Holy Ghost to influence me or direct me where I need to go.

Doubt can die. Fear can fade. Horror and confusion and sorrow can go away. Or, at least, I can leave them. They can't follow me where I'm going now. I'm going to God, and they'll dissipate under the force of His almighty light and power. So I'm on the furthest end of heaven right now, and I'll be on the other end--the deepest end--where no darkness lies waiting, and the light of eternity bids me seek His presence continually. That's where I'm going.

Home!

Power is the primary thing. When we look at life, our view is determined by both the forces we have encountered and the forces we may yet encounter. Our perspective is framed by the same powers that we fight every step of the way. Our vision is driven by vice. Our strengths are derived from our weaknesses. We seek the higher ground to escape ourselves, not solely to escape our enemies.

There is power in distance. Our trials provide perspective, but distances provide the views that urge and inspire us. When it seems that we have reached our destination, we may rest for a short while; but we eventually will press onward. Our very nature compels continuance. There is rest neither for the weary nor for the strong, because resting is not in our nature. We sleep only to wake and continue our trek to the destination that none of us have reached.

Thus, the power of distance is what yields us to our inner traveler. When confronted with distance, we either decline into our complacency or—in that crux of fate—we recognize that what is lacking is not with us, but is out there, in some other place. Most of us find familiarity in the idea of 'home'. What is home but an ultimate destination? Destinations change with perspective, and perspective changes with time.

The horizon changes with every footstep, every heartbeat. The horizon calls to us, yet it is hauntingly unreachable. Why, then, do we set out in endless journeys? Why do we pursue a destination that can never be reached?

We strive to find our destination because we know that what we do not have is somewhere far off, far beyond us. We don't have it now, and we may never get it, but we certainly will not have it if we remain where we are. The horizon, meanwhile, is tantalizingly close. It is in our line of sight. Our efforts to reach it may never end; it will never let us forget what it is that we do not have.

This is the close horizon. This is the destination that all of us either seek to find, or seek to forget about, whether we know it or not. Once we realize that home is not a fixed position, we will be homebound. Until then, we are strangers in a strange land.

That is the other power of distance. It provides direction. We measure the distances that lie before us into identifiable form: roads, buildings, communities, counties, nations, continents. We box in our perspectives and curtail our desires. All the while we fail to recognize that our contrived 'distances' have no power compared to the power of direction. We walk and run and cycle and drive down endless highways to endless destinations that aren't really our destination but provide temporary satisfaction. Though we tangibly move, we are subconsciously stuck. So long as we forget our real destination, and the direction it takes us, we aren't going anywhere.

Look for the horizon. Find the need that you have for the things you do not have, and then go and find them. Run home. Run, run home. Keep running. Keep running. Never stand still again.